Due to current attitudes to the use of animals in biomedical research any pain or distress caused to animals should be minimized. This can be achieved by the use of appropriate anesthetic and analgesic regimens. There are both sound ethical and scientific reasons for controlling pain in animals and can also make a substantial contribution to refinement of animal experiments. In this chapter recent trends in the administration of anesthetics and analgesics to laboratory rats and mice undergoing surgical procedures are assessed.
